


he who has ears to hear

by evewithanapple



Category: Jesus Christ Superstar - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 02:45:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15257697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evewithanapple/pseuds/evewithanapple
Summary: Mary's road stretches out forward from Jerusalem.





	he who has ears to hear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Missy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/gifts).



_Peter said to Mary, Sister we know that the Savior loved you more than the rest of woman._

_Tell us the words of the Savior which you remember which you know, but we do not, nor have we heard them._

_Mary answered and said, What is hidden from you I will proclaim to you._

* * *

 

They travel from Jerusalem to Caesarea, but Mary does not lead them. Mary trails at the back of their caravan, tending to those who struggle to keep the pace. Peter takes the lead, his voice echoing back to where Mary walks as he instructs the other disciples in where to walk, how to carry their baggage, what to tell the fellow-travellers they meet along the way. Those who walk with Mary are almost all young, or old, or sick. She dispenses sips of water from her goatskin, sometimes carries the smaller children when they complain that their feet ache, and passes her portions of food amongst the sick when they stop to eat. Peter does not speak to her. Nor does Simon. Most of the other Apostles are too busy at the front of the line to take much notice of her, or what she is doing.

By the time they’re halfway to Caesarea, they’ve lost at least a third of the caravan they started out with. Most of those left behind were the ones Mary had walked with; the journey had grown too arduous for them, their health too precarious. Peter presses his lips close together and shakes his head at each follower who departs. Mary says goodbye with a quiet press of their hands and a soft word of goodwill.

At night, when they build a fire at the side of the road, Mary drifts closer to the other apostles as they hold court. Peter, Andrew, James, and John put their heads close together as they discuss their plans: should they continue on to Caesarea, or turn back towards Jerusalem? Simon, who hangs on the edge of their circle, suggests that they swerve from their path entirely, and turn towards Bethabara, while John tells him that he has been in Bethabara, and it would be pointless to return. None of them take any notice of Mary, as she sits at the edge of the fire’s glow and listens.

On her third night of listening, she decides to speak. “We should travel north,” she says, “towards Nazareth. The family of our Saviour’s mother is there, and they would shelter us throughout the winter. We can disperse when the spring comes, and travel will be easier.”

They all turn to look at her. Peter’s eyes are dark. “Why should we delay our travels,” he says, “when we are all strong enough to withstand a winter on the road?”

Mary clasps her hands in her lap. “We are strong enough now, but we may not remain so,” she says. “Look how many we have already had to leave behind. They were not all so weak when our journey started. If we continue on in this way, more will fall ill. There will be none left to preach by spring.”

Simon looks between her and Peter. John nods thoughtfully. But Peter only shakes his head. “We will not borrow trouble,” he says, brusque. “If we must leave some behind, then we will. In the meantime, we will continue on to Caesarea.”

Mary bites the inside of her cheek and says nothing. She can recognize a losing battle when she sees one, and Peter will not listen to her now.

That night, she dreams of Jesus. He holds his arms out to her and smiles, and when she wakes, her face is wet with tears.

* * *

 

Nathaniel is the first of them to fall ill. It starts with a hacking cough, which worsens over the course of several days. Mary tries to offer him water, to buy soothing syrups at the market when they stop in Lod, but he waves her away with his mouth set in a grim line. He will not accept help; one of the youngest of the apostles, he wants badly to prove himself worthy of their mission. Mary tries to tell him that Jesus would not ask him to die needlessly in the name of stubborn pride, but her words fall on deaf ears. Still, he begins to drop back towards the end of the procession, and Mary makes sure to walk beside him.

The next is Philip, who trips over a rock in the road and hurts his ankle. He keeps walking on it, but it swells daily, and his limp grows ever worse. Then Nathaniel’s cough spreads to Thaddaeus, and then to Simon. Even Peter begins to look drawn and gray, but he will admit no weakness, and Mary knows better than to try and help. By now, they have reached Jopa, and the winter winds coming from the sea makes them all shiver. By the time Andrew begins to stumble and falter, even Peter can no longer deny the need to stop. He gathers them at the house of a believer and asks who wishes to remain while he travels onward. None volunteer.

“We have not that much father to go,” Simon protests, weakly. “We need only travel along the coast to reach Caesarea. Only a fortnight’s journey remains to us.”

Peter casts his gaze across the group, face tight. Men sag in their chairs, leaning hard against the table, struggling to hold themselves upright. They do not have a fortnight’s fortitude of travel between them. Anyone can see that.

For the first time, Peter turns to her. “Mary?”

She can see what the concession has cost him, and chooses her words carefully. “Since we are so close,” she says, “some may stay here a few days to recover before traveling on. Others might stay here. I will stay and nurse whoever requires nursing.” She spreads her hands. “Surely we can preach the Gospel in Jopa as well as in Caesarea.”

Peter acknowledges this with a quick jerk of his head. He looks around the circle, waiting for someone to protest, to insist that they continue to move forward. No one does.

“All right,” he says, “all right.”

* * *

 

Some do recover in a few days’ time; Simon and Thaddaeus are cured of their cough after resting for a week, and when they finally agree to let Mary treat them. Philip’s ankle is somewhat longer to heal, but a kind soul in Jopa provides him with a crutch, and the swelling goes down by the end of the month. Peter and Andrew, who suffered only from exhaustion, recover with rest and good food. Of the eleven, it is only Nathaniel who struggles to recuperate; Nathaniel, who suffered the longest in silence and refused to let Mary help him, continues to struggle when he tries to draw breath or walk more than a few paces. The others are ready and eager to leave, and Nathaniel would gladly go with them, if he could only walk.

“I will remain with him,” Mary says quietly to Peter as Nathaniel sleeps. “Our hostess has offered to keep him, but I would not see him left alone in a foreign city.”

Peter accedes. He still does not like her overmuch, Mary thinks, but he is at least willing to listen. She grieves the lack of companionship, but what he does offer is better than what she once expected. Besides, he and the others are leaving soon; Mary and Nathaniel will be the only followers of Jesus who linger on in Jopa when the winter has passed.

On the day they set out, Mary sees them off with a brave face. Once they are gone, she sits at Nathaniel’s bedside as he sleeps and cries. Their hostess, Junia, offers her wine and bread, then retreats so that Mary may grieve privately.

(“What will you do,” she asks, “when he is dead?” She means Nathaniel; his condition has not worsened, but neither has it improved. Both Mary and Junia recognize that even if it does not kill him soon, it will kill him all the same.

Mary has no answer for her.)

In the meantime, she must earn her keep – Junia has been more than kind, but she is a woman alone, and she cannot support a household of three by herself. So Mary takes up the spindle. She had used one before, as a girl in Magdala, and the skill has not left her entirely. In the mornings, she tends to Nathaniel; in the afternoons, she sits in Junia’s doorway and spins.

 There are two small girls who play in the street while Mary spins. For the first little while, they ignore her, too busy with their small private dramas to notice a strange adult in their vicinity. Then they begin to circle the street, always returning to a spot just slightly closer to Mary than they were before. This continues for nearly a week. Finally, when they are kneeling at Mary’s feet, the older of the two speaks up. “You’re not from here.”

Mary continues spinning. “I am not.”

The girl squints at her, blowing a loose strand of hair away from her face. “Where’re you from, then? Why’re you here?”

“I was born in Magdala.” Mary pauses to wind her yarn around the spindle. “But I came here by way of Jerusalem.”

“With the men,” the younger girl says. Mary is somewhat surprised that she remembers; Jopa is a port city, and the children surely see strange men pass through their neighbourhoods every day. “The ones who were fleeing the Romans.”

“The heretics,” adds the older one, “and criminals.” Her squint grows more fearsome. “Are you a criminal?”

Mary sets the spindle down in her lap and regards the girls thoughtfully. “Do I seem so?”

“No,” the older one concedes, “not really. But you travelled with them, so you may yet be.” Her mouth is pursed into a funny little pout, like she’s tasted something intriguingly sour and isn’t yet sure whether or not she likes it. “Why were you with them? What were you doing?”

Mary picks up the spindle again. “My rabbi was with us,” she says, “for a time. Then he died, and we continued on together, until one of our number fell sick and I elected to stay here with him.” It is truth stripped of meaning: a dry recitation of facts as children may understand them, with all references to the glory and the blood and the grief of it carefully elided. The girls already know life under Rome; they will know more of it soon enough. Let them be content in ignorance, for now.

All of Mary’s good intentions shatter at the child’s next words. “The rabbi who was crucified,” she says. “I heard my mother say it. He called himself King of the Jews.”

“He did.” The steady scratching of wool against her fingertips is the only thing that holds Mary to the ground; that, and the fact that she cannot make a scene weeping and tearing at her hair in a public street, where attention might be called to her hostess’s house. “And he said and did many other things. Acts of charity. Words of comfort. Miracles.”

“Miracles?” Both girls lean forward in unison, eyes wide. “What sort of miracles?”

“Hmm.” On safer ground now, Mary continues to wind her thread as she casts about for a suitable tale. “Once in Gadara, I saw him heal a man who was possessed by a great number of demons. His strength was such, he could not be held by chains, and he had been banished to live among the tombs of the dead . . . “

The story of the Gadarene man seems to satisfy the girls, and once Mary has finished, they allow themselves to be called home for supper. But the next day, they returned with four other children in tow. The older girl from the day before – clearly the leader of the group – planted herself in front of Mary, her hands on her hips. “Tell us another story.”

“A miracle story,” one of the other children says, “with demons.”

“Or angels!”

“Or monsters!”

“Or soldiers!”

And Mary does. That afternoon, she tells them of Lazarus rising from his tomb; the next day, they have returned, their numbers swollen by another five. She tells them of the water turned to wine. And so it goes, for weeks; they come back every day, always increasing and hungry for more. When she runs out of miracles, she begins to relate some of his sermons. By this point, they are so enraptured, they sit quietly while she tells them of the Mount and the temple in Jerusalem. As they go home at the end of the day, she hears them singing amongst themselves: “Jesus! Jesus, our lord and saviour! Jesus, king of the Jews!”

“You play with fire,” Junia remarks to her one night over supper. “What if a centurion heard you?”

Mary only shrugs. “If I have lit a fire,” she says, “a centurion has not the strength to put it out.”

Two years past their arrival in Jopa, on a gentle day in early spring Nathaniel takes his final breath. Mary has, by now, shed her tears for him; he went to death with a smile on his face, joyful in anticipation of seeing the Kingdom of Heaven. They bury him in Junia’s family tomb, and Junia weeps for him too. The children gather and wave palm leaves as they carry his body to the vault.

By now, Junia has married; her husband is a gentle man, and he voices no objection to Mary’s remaining in their household. As their family flowers, Mary watches over the children while Junia bakes and spins. As the babies coo and pull at Mary’s hair, she sings to them softly: _Let the luminous stars not shine, let the winds and all the noisy rivers die down._

“Don’t you want a family of your own?” Junia asks her, once. Mary shakes her head. She has her family, and more; the little girl from across the street, the one who first demanded a story from Mary as she sat at her spindle, has begun to hold meetings in her husband’s house. She is grown with children of her own now, and they too come to sit at Mary’s feet and beg for tales of the Saviour. She has a little boy called Nathaniel, and another called Simon, for she knows the Zealot from Mary’s stories. She has confided in Mary that, if she bears another boy, her husband wants to call him Jude; and Mary remembers the first of them to fall, and her heart is full.

She still dreams of him; of them both. Of those hot days in Jerusalem, when they seemed within touching distance of their dream but so achingly unable to reach it. She thinks of Peter, fearful in his denial; of Simon, so brash and bright and filled with passion; and yes, of Judas, who was so sick with fear and doubt that he turned his back on what he loved most. Too many years have passed for bitterness. Mary can see her own end in sight now, and she does not want to greet it with a failing heart. Jesus promised them the Kingdom of Heaven, an eternity in God’s love. He offered it to all of them, even the sinners. The Kingdom on Earth is coming, too; whatever else may be in store, she knows she has left it in good hands. She is content.

* * *

 

_Now I see you contending against the woman like the adversaries._

_But if the Savior made her worthy, who are you indeed to reject her? Surely the Savior knows her very well._

_That is why He loved her more than us. Rather let us be ashamed and put on the perfect Man, and separate as He commanded us and preach the gospel, not laying down any other rule or other law beyond what the Savior said._

_And when they heard this they began to go forth to proclaim and to preach._

**Author's Note:**

> The quotes at the beginning and end are from the Gospel of Mary, an apocryphal gospel (that is to say, not officially recognized as part of the Bible) discovered in the late 1800s. You can read the whole thing [here](http://www.gnosis.org/library/marygosp.htm) \- it's not very long. Scholars are still quibbling over which Mary the Gospel refers to (there are a lot of them in the Bible!) but since we're basing this fic on the musical anyway, who cares?
> 
> There is actually a Junia mentioned in the Bible - Romans 16:7. No mention of her being friends with Mary Magdalene, though. Depending on who you ask, the name is either Junia, Junius, or Julia.
> 
> The story of the Gadarene exorcism (sometimes Gerasene or Gergesene) is probably one of the most famous exorcism stories in the Bible - it's the one where Jesus commands the demon to name itself, and it replies "My name is Legion, for we are many." Also, a bunch of pigs jump off a cliff.
> 
> The song Mary sings to the baby is an early Christian hymn, found in the same papyrus that contains the Gospel of Mary. It's known as the Oxyrhnchus Hymn, after the town where it was discovered, and you can listen to several versions [here](https://earlychurchhistory.org/arts/oldest-known-christian-hymn/).


End file.
